Video: Inside the leak of the Tsarnaev capture photos

Ed MorrisseyPosted at 11:01 am on April 18, 2014

Tomorrow will mark one year since the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the end of a massive manhunt after the Boston Marathon bombing. His older brother had already been killed, but not before killing an MIT police officer, and the frantic search for the other terror suspect had put the city in lockdown for hours. When they finally drew the younger brother out of the boat, the bedraggled Tsarnaev looked like the farthest thing from a celebrity or rock star to Sean Murphy, the tactical photographer for the state troopers on hand to document the operation.

Not long afterward, Murphy was aghast to discover that Rolling Stone had put Tsarnaev on their cover, in a soft-focus and blow-dried image, a treatment that the magazine usually reserves for teeny-bopper idols. Murphy decided to release the photos of the captured Tsarnaev that he had taken to show people a clearer version of what the terrorist actually is — and it cost him his job. As Murphy told CBS This Morning, though, he has no regrets:

Sean Murphy will run in Monday’s marathon, the first since the bombing, representing the young boy killed by the Tsarnaevs. Too bad Rolling Stone didn’t put Martin Richard’s picture on the cover.

Update: Sgt. Murphy was a state trooper, not Boston PD, and the murdered officer a member of the MIT Police Department. I’ve corrected it above.